Is Sue Kelly A Moderate?

Published: June 25, 2006

To the Editor:

Your May 28 article ''In a Vulnerable Year for Republicans, Just How Vulnerable Is Sue Kelly?,'' about New York's 19th Congressional District, notes that Representative Sue W. Kelly ''has spent more than a decade carefully crafting an image as a moderate independent Republican.'' It would be more accurate to describe her as an entrenched Washington establishment corporatist.

Take, for example, her disgraceful support for last year's anti-consumer bankruptcy reform legislation. That legislation was a corporate giveaway to the credit card industry; it was not supported by a majority of the American people, and it has negatively affected many of her constituents. How does her sponsorship of this kind of legislation make Ms. Kelly a moderate?